In general, in addition to reception and viewing/listening of television broadcast, a television receiver can be connected to a video device such as a recording and reproduction device, DVR (Digital Video Recorder) or DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), for example, and can reproduce and view/listen contents recorded in the device or commercially-supplied contents. Accordingly, the television receiver often includes one or more external input terminals in addition to an antenna terminal for receiving the television broadcast. A user can switch the external inputs by the use of a remote controller (hereinafter, referred to as “remote controller”) or buttons on the device body as needed.
A tuner is generally mounted on a video device, which can often receive the television broadcast. Accordingly, when it does not reproduce contents accumulated therein, the video device generally outputs the received television broadcast to a display device such as a television receiver. Accordingly, even when a signal input in the external input terminals of the television receiver is switched to the video device, it is possible to view the television broadcast.
Devices or methods of automatically switching an input path of video and audio data in a television receiver using commands exchanged between a display device such as the television receiver and a recording and reproduction device such as a video device have been standardized. The switching of the input path means, for example, that the television receiver switches video and audio data output from a built-in tuner to video and audio data output from a recording and reproduction data connected to an external input terminal and displays the switched video and audio data.
To permit such switching, for example, commands allowing a display device and a recording and reproduction device to operate by interlocking with each other are defined (for example, see Non-Patent Literature 1). For example, when the recording and reproduction device starts the reproduction, the recording and reproduction device issues an output start notice command to the display device. As a result, the display device automatically switches a signal input to the external input terminal of the display device to a signal input from the recording and reproduction device. Then, the recording and reproduction device can display the reproduced contents on the display device.
When a recording and reproduction device which it is desired to use along with the display device is selected by a user's operation and an output start instruction command is sent from the display device to the recording and reproduction device, an output start notice command is sent from the recording and reproduction device to the display device. By exchanging these commands, the signal input to the external input terminal of the display device can be switched to the signal input from the recording and reproduction device and the content reproduced by the recording and reproduction device can be displayed on the display device.
In general, recording and reproduction devices include a hard disc drive (hereinafter, abbreviated as “HDD”) as a recording medium in addition to a video tape or a DVD-RAM. The devices including the HDD often have a time shift viewing/listening function with characteristics of the HDD that they have large capacity and random accessibility and can record and reproduce contents at the same time. The time shift viewing/listening function is to reproduce a content in recording while recording the content received by a tuner built in the recording and reproduction device in a recording unit (HDD). Accordingly, by the use of this time shift viewing/listening function, it is possible to view a missed scene of a content again or to reproduce a program in recording in a time shift manner.
Studies for not missing important scenes have been made by outputting the live video, which is being received by the tuner built in the recording and reproduction device, in the course of performing processes of encoding a received signal and decoding a recorded signal accompanied with the recording and reproduction, thereby improving the operational response in appearance (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
However, in the past recording and reproducing apparatuses, when it is intended to start the time shift viewing/listening, the signal input to the external input terminal of the display device should be switched to the signal input from the recording and reproduction device in advance and the content received by a tuner built in the recording and reproduction device should be switched. Accordingly, the content in view cannot be viewed temporarily or the switching should wait for the timing of CM or the like. Therefore, when a content is being viewed by the use of the tuner built in the display device, the switching operation cannot be performed at once.
In this case, even by using the exchange of commands above-mentioned, the operation of switching the content of the tuner built in the recording and reproduction device to the same content as viewed by the use of the tuner built in the display device until then cannot be carried out only by the use of the remote controller of the display device, and it is thus necessary to replace the remote controller of the display device with the remote controller of the recording and reproduction device. A method of exchanging commands with the display device and switching the content of the tuner built in the recording and reproduction device by interlocking with the time shift viewing/listening can be considered at the time of starting the time shift viewing/listening. However, since a channel selecting process of the tuner and a process of encoding output data and converting the encoded data into data recordable on the HDD take a process time, the recording cannot be started at once from the time point where it is intended to start the time shift viewing/listening and thus a head part of a content may be cut off.
The input switching operation to the recording and reproduction device can be generally carried out by the use of the remote controller of the display device, but a time shift viewing/listening execution operation or a special reproduction operation thereafter should be carried out by the use of the remote controller of the recording and reproduction device.
However, in the method described in Patent Literature 1, the signal switching time required for every signal switching due to the selection of a broadcast signal and the process time required for performing a recording and reproduction process can be omitted in appearance at the time of time shift viewing/listening, but any attention has not been paid to the timing of recording the content for the time shift viewing/listening. Accordingly, head scenes of the content recorded in the recording and reproduction device is delayed from the time point where a user presses a time shift viewing/listening start button for the purpose of the time shift viewing/listening by the time corresponding to the signal switching time and the recording process time. As a result, the video and audio data of the content in the period of time corresponding to the delayed time is not recorded on the HDD or the like. When video or audio of an important scene is received exactly at that time, the video or audio of the important scene might not be recorded. In the past method, at the time of time shift viewing/listening, it is necessary to frequently change and operate the remote controller of the display device and the remote controller of the recording and reproduction device, thereby deteriorating the operability and response.    Non-Patent Literature 1: HDMI-CEC (High-Definition Multimedia Interface Specification Version 1.3a—Consumer Electronics Control) Standard    Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2004-186997